


A World Where Hope, Wishes, Love, and Despair are Ours

by TheOneAndOnly1993



Category: Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Children, F/F, Flash Forward, Franchise Ending headcanon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Moving In Together, Moving On, Picture them as adults, Post-Canon, RIP NA Server, Third chapter is where everybody is aged up, implied trauma, recovering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneAndOnly1993/pseuds/TheOneAndOnly1993
Summary: It's over. There exists a universe where Incubators and Witches have ceased to exist, but at great cost.The fabric of reality couldn't handle Madokami and Akumura's cycle of sacrificing themselves for each other's sake. After hundreds of timelines and alternate universes, the threads of these disparate records crashed together, overflowing the memories of those most closely tied to these girls' fates with lives they don't remember living, but are certain they have. The situation was made dire as millions of Witches spilled through the cracks of this tattered reality, and proceeded to consume all life in the universe.Girls who suffered so much across so many timelines joined hands, grit their teeth, and fought a hopeless last stand against the overwhelming enemy.The horrified goddesses joined their hearts in one, vying for a world where Miracles and Magic weren't real, but the Hope and Love which fueled such things remained. The world as we know it was born - a world with a similar history as the Incubators' guided path, with all the despair and triumphs etched throughout.It is a hollow victory, but one where the survivors of this grueling, timeline-spanning struggle are, at long last, free.
Relationships: Akemi Homura/Kaname Madoka, Akino Kaede/Minami Rena, Alina Gray/Misono Karin, Amane Tsukasa/Amane Tsukuyo, Awane Kokoro/Kagami Masara, Ayano Rika/Isuzu Ren, Miki Sayaka/Sakura Kyouko
Comments: 21
Kudos: 38





	1. Several Days Later

**_The Week After Victory..._ **

_ “Investigations remain directionless over the unprecedented mass kidnapping that occurred last week, wherein dozens upon dozens of female students, ages ranging from eleven to eighteen, have vanished without a trace. Families and classmates have been unable to provide any leads. The majority of cases are in the Kamihama area, but several disappearances have occurred in surrounding cities including, but not limited to, cities Asunaro, Hohzuki, and Mitakihara. Authorities are most baffled by the vanishing of daughters hailing from prolific families, such as Clan Mikuni’s Oriko-san, Clan Satomi’s Touka-san, and Clan Tokiwa’s Nanaka-san. This is contrasted by several of the kidnapped described as ‘harmless’ by friends and family, including Kaname Madoka-san of Mitakihara, and Akemi Homura-san, who was slated to begin schooling in Kaname Madoka-san’s class the day of the mass kidnapping.” _

_ “If you might know of any leads regarding to the missing persons, even if it’s odd behavior, we implore you to call this toll-free number at—”  _

The radio’s knob clicked, sparking the axe-swing of silence to crush down upon Sana’s nerves. It shifted but remained as soon as she dropped her crumb-laden plate in the sink, yanked the faucet aside: water hissed, the faucet squeaked, and silence cleaved her in two once again. 

Pacing was all she had. Without her greatshield for physical hurts, nor protection from emotional pain, Sana only had distractions to protect herself from the quiet. She paced to and fro, eyes everywhere but the backpack set on the counter until, suddenly, a knock on the door, on her heart. The lightness within betrayed Sana, yanking her back to earth—she couldn’t remember the last time someone ever knocked on Mikazuki Villa’s door. 

And not because 99% of her conflicting, jumbled memories had nothing to do with this ancient boarding house. In fact, she remembered that beautiful 1% with perfect clarity. Even the little things, like overhearing Felicia and Tsuruno gaming, or the comparative gentleness of Yachiyo turning a page in her novel while Iroha and Sana sipped tea. 

Her grief was blinked away upon the door crashing open, giving way to three plastic bins full of clothes, quilting, and what looked to be a tea set in one. 

“YO, PARDON THE INTRUSION!” 

Sayaka Miki shoved herself through the narrow gap of the doorway, hauling two gym bags with sweat glistening on her arms. “For Pete’s sake, Kyoko,” she growled. “You don’t just barge in when no one’s made it official yet.” 

“The door was unlocked and it’s hot as Hell, get off my back! ‘Sides…” Stepping inside the living room, the redhead smiled wolfishly, and sweatily, from around the tower. “‘Sides, the Tomoes’ve got more than enough dough, and I’m covered by Mami-san’s—” 

“Ah- _ hem! _ ” Mami walked daintily inside, setting down her own bag and assorted containers. “What did I ask of you in the trenches, Kyoko-chan? When I had lost an arm?” 

Wincing as she perched upon her own stack, Kyoko grumbled, “I remember,  _ Mami-chan. _ ” 

Their senpai giggled, her blush matching Kyoko’s. Hands behind her head, Sayaka was twisting her upper torso side to side until throwing her gaze from her friends to their new home, their new housemate. 

“Sana-chan, hey! Didn’t see ya there!” 

Mami peeped, her blush darkening as she dropped the luggage aside, smoothed out the front of her shirt then bowed deep. “Thank you for allowing us to live here, Sana-chan. I promise you, we will do our best to honor the memory of your teammates and cause as little ruckus as possible.” 

_ No. Please. Make noise, make all the noise.  _ Not for distractions’ sake, but to honor Iroha’s dying wish— _ Live. Life for yourself and live with others. You’re worth knowing and loving _ —in the off-chance that Sana and Yachiyo survived long enough for Madoka and Homura to “do something” after her sacrifice, which followed a wordless confession to her senior in the form of a kiss on the lips. 

_ “Ui was my reason for living,”  _ she’d said with tears in her eyes, misted in the memory of her recent sister,  _ “but you, all of you, gave me something to fight for.”  _

Yachiyo’s last words to her, quaking with a rainbow of emotions:  _ “You don’t get to drop this on me at the Eleventh Hour, Iroha. What happened to not dying?”  _

Iroha was struck, then grinning.  _ “So you remembered my promise.”  _

_ “Of course!”  _ Yachiyo, genuinely, cried.  _ “Through the hundreds of times I searched hopelessly for Mifuyu, distanced my heart from Momoko and Tsuruno, lost hope, and despaired, of course I would remember the trust I placed in you after being promised such a thing!”  _

They crashed into each other—all three of them, the remaining three, at that very moment. 

_ “I love you all so much,”  _ Yachiyo hissed, Iroha squeezed, and Sana sobbed. 

A different, softer warmth closed tight around Sana—distinctly different from the metal breastplate and leather straps pressed into her forehead she’d always wake up feeling, if only for a heartbeat. 

“I understand,” Mami’s voice hitched tenderly in her ear. “We miss Kan—M- _ Madoka-chan _ , a-a-and Homura-chan, ourselves.” 

“Dammit, Mami…” Past her senpai’s twitching shoulder, Sana glimpsed Sayaka rubbing two fingers in her eyes. With a snuffle, Kyoko clasped her on the shoulder, blinked the glossiness from her eyes. 

“I still can’t bear the weight of what I’d done in most every timeline… th-the truth of who I am.” Mami sniffed. Sana couldn’t bring herself to remark that Mami’s rage-fueled savagery was what kept her going after Yachiyo perished. “But I’m still alive, so the best I can do is not allow everybody’s sacrifices to be in vain. That includes living, regardless of how… how little I would like to.” 

“Y-you have so many different memories of them.” Sana didn’t deserve to cry. If just one set, a comparatively lighter one against the tragedies these three had witnessed, was so hard to bear… 

Goodness, it was impossible! How did Yachiyo cope the first time?! Or move on in the one universe where she couldn’t become a Witch and have the sweet release of death free her from this horrible crushing feeling?! 

“There, there.” Soft circles rubbed into her back. It was so much like Yachiyo and Iroha’s that Sana just cried harder. 

“Ah, y’know, Sana…” Kyoko’s eyes were aside, her hand on the back of her head, the other clenching and unclenching at her side. “Sana, y’don’t gotta let us stay here if it’s too much right now. If you’re really not ready, I mean—” 

“ _ No _ ,” Sana rasped. She cleared her throat, repeated hoarsely, “No, p-p-please stay. Please, stay. I... don’t… I don’t wanna be alone, never again!” First AI, then Mikazuki Villa. Everything outside of that was just a hundred lifetimes’ worth of loneliness. 

“And neither do we,” Mami said into her ear. “None of us… we former magical girls… will ever know loneliness again.” 

“Y-yes. Right. That’s right.” 

Because there wasn’t a soul in all existence who understood, who believed, what the handful of survivors had seen to be here today, the people they’ve lost. Where once it was a duty, a mistake, that connected magical girls, now it was shared grief that linked them on a deeper level. 

It was that connection which made Sana’s backpack so unbearably heavy, before she could even test its weight, lifting it from the counter. 

“Speaking of which,” said Kyoko, checking her new phone, “Yuma’s arrived at the site. Says everyone’s there, and…” she drawled, flashing her screen in front of her, “they’re ahead of schedule. Everyone but us got there ahead of time and finished…” she sighed, whirled away while pocketing her device. 

Sayaka prompted, “Finished…?” 

“The graves! Th-the monuments, memorials! Whatever, fuck!” She paced for the open door. “C’mon! Let’s get this over with already!” 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A battalion of smooth, round rocks sat beneath a tree, aligned in its shade but spilling out far into the grassy fields. Upon each was a painting. A simple image: one was ruby embedded in a fat, gold teardrop, another was a purple diamond set beside a rosy sliver up front. Dozens followed this seemingly random theme. 

A wooden sign stood erect before it all: “Memorial to the Kidnapped. Please be respectful and do not disturb.” 

Before the sign lingered fewer magical girls than there were rocks by a noticeable margin. 

Their surroundings, too barren to support wildlife, stood silent as a grave. 

“It is time to pay respects!” Mami cried in her frail, strong voice. She wasn’t the oldest present, thank goodness, but she had been the most composed (when around other girls) and was the original pitcher of this memorial idea. 

Wordlessly, the former magical girls stepped through the grid of stones, all of them carrying some kind of flower. Those closer to specific girls were offering mementos—Masara Kagami lowered herself to tuck a stuffed keychain neath a stone painted with Kokoro’s green diamond. The sight of her head lowering, eyes drawn shut as her hand caressed the marker, stuffed a lump so vast in Sana’s throat that she nearly choked. 

Bawling burst forth beside her, but Sana kept her eyes on the four before her—she knew that cry well from the battles last week. Hauntingly so. Deafening, even while muffled in Momoko’s chest hitching with sobs of her own. Stroking Rena’s head, her eyes fell upon Kaede Akino’s grave enshrined with a wreath of pseudo maple leaves. 

Several rows before them, bodies quietly maneuvered around one another, giving way eventually to the unmistakable sight of Mitama Yakumo’s—of course piled in sweets. 

“Surrounded by shit—in death as you were in life.” Sana found on the farthest right of the front row one Alina Gray, plaid beret covering her heart. At her feet, a particularly small stone painted in the likeness of a pumpkin stood stark against the dreary rest. That wasn’t even mentioning the array of colored pencils staking the earth like some sort of perimeter, the gaps between them stuffed in volumes of  _ Magical Thief Kirin.  _ “A veritable monkey with a machine gun—that was you and your craft. It was fulfilling to have been your senpai, fool girl.” 

Sana felt her heart stop as Alina and her locked eyes. The artist looked to the rest, the weeping or the praying, her voice whipping them all at attention: “I, Alina, will exterminate those who desecrate Misono Karin’s with insulting courtesies. None of you cared for her in life. Do not pretend she’s more worthy of your time in death just because of social expectations.” 

Silence. Many returned to their grieving, either out of respect for Alina or a lack of heart. 

“Nagitan cared,” said a soft, small voice. “So did Ashley, and... Riko.” The pigtailed bento shop girl sat kneeling before the boss of Daito’s gravestone. “We loved K-K-Kirin…  _ we loved her s’ho much! _ ” Tsukuyo Amane, the closest nearby, knelt behind and closed her arms around Riko, giving her the privacy and security to bawl herself ragged like Rena Minami. 

Alina had replaced her beret, fingers tugging it so Sana couldn’t see her eyes. 

In the farthest row, there was a muted, shivering group hug comprised of Kamihama’s oldest surviving veteran, its youngest-tallest genki girl, and the only magical girl couple who didn’t leave their true feelings hidden until the very last moment like so many others. Like Iroha and Yachiyo. Perhaps that’s why they survived, a clear mind was on their side. Them and Sayaka and Kyoko. 

Sana thought them lucky. 

But as she watched the ragtag team drop honors unto many graves, forced to face the scope of their connections with various teams—including Tsuruno and Yachiyo—Sana realized how horrible and petty she was to be envious of this singular, whole unit who emerged seemingly unscathed. 

Pain was pain. 

Oh, how pain was pain—clear as day in the eyes of an otherwise “emotionless” Nemu Hiragi. She walked, surprisingly for just a second until Sana remembered, to each of the seven graves before her and many others, including the Feathers she had once manipulated, Tsukasa and Mifuyu among them, along with Ikumi and Ryou and many more. 

Only when she was done with Mikazuki up front did Sana feel allowed to approach. After all, Nemu had at least known Iroha longer, more deeply, across more timelines than she. 

But pain was pain. 

And Sana had suffered Witch-inducing loneliness across a hundred timelines. She had lost hope, was saved by Madoka in just as many universes; or remained alone but attending school in Homura’s. There were times Sana recalled laughing in, side by side with girls who genuinely considered and loved her. A family, through and through. She had rejoined them in tears, all of them in tears just last week, their hearts beaten flat by several lifetimes’ worth of loneliness and grief but just a sliver of happiness and love and warmth within Mikazuki Villa. 

They genuinely loved one another. 

Enough to die for each other, one after the next, until only Sana remained to remember and honor them. To live—those were Iroha’s words. 

_ I will,  _ Sana replied at last. But she had to die one last, painful time, first. More painful than any of the loneliness she felt leading up to this; more than any of the times she had to watch her family get obliterated by Witches one after the next like dominos. 

And as she died Sana found her backpack open before her knees, and four mugs set beside four graves across from her. She was dying but was toasted warm instead of the cold she heard of, a warmth squeezing her on both sides from either flank. 

Sayaka on one side. 

Rena on the other. 

Sana caressed their forearms, thanking them in her heart and aloud, again and again as often as the tears flowed. 

But Sana Futaba had, at last, died one final time at the age of fourteen. She was alive, and she was never going to be alone again. 


	2. Madoka and Homura's final wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both thought they knew what was best for each other. With nothing left to fight for and lie for at the end of all things, two little girls pretending they're a flawless god and a malicious devil are thrust with the reality of their shared making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't get this out of my head. Please keep in mind that Madoka and Homura have gone through so much for each other, after Rebellion in particular, that despite the circumstances their thoughts and emotions cannot help but be directed at the adversary they've loved and suffered over. They're nothing if not emotionally fractured by this point. 
> 
> For background music, have this Rebellion track on loop (right click) as you read: https://youtu.be/MOZBt5h7nyI

One minute, they were tearing through the stars of the nth universe borne by their desires. 

The next, all of existence screamed. 

And the two concepts were, for once in their miserable existences, true to themselves. Whereas they could only interfere to the extent that their wishes allowed, now it was like all the stars, every atom in every crevice of the universe, had been wrapped in cloth twice. 

Their sense of ‘touch’ was dull, muted. Everything numb yet prickling like fire all at once; as if Love or Hope never existed in this new reality. There were only screams to be heard, death to witness. 

“Oh, God!” 

Within the unfathomable depths of reality.

“Oh, my  _ God _ , Madoka!”

Everywhere and nowhere at once. 

“This’s  _ horrible! _ ” 

Before the all-seeing-eyes of a concept once named Kaname Madoka, that of Love once named Akemi Homura wrung fistfulls of black hair, her eyes agape beholding horror not physically before her.

“Oh, God! Oh  _ God, oh, God-oh-God-oh-my-God! _ ” Homura dry-sobbed. “Th-this, I didn’t want this! I-I  _ never  _ w-wanted  _ this! _ ” 

Madoka swallowed, refusing to let out her terror. “H-Homura-cha—” 

“How? W- _ Why?! Any _ of it?!” 

Madoka threw out her gut reaction, her best guess: “Well, we both were trying to overpower one another! Perhaps our powers went berserk, trying to sate our shared desires at once?”

Homura shuddered, Madoka couldn’t help herself, a chill shocking through her at the implications. Thoughtlessness, Madoka realized—selfishness and thoughtlessness had been the root of this all since she became Hope. Perhaps, in some ways, it went as far back as Homura’s initial contract. But if that were true, then Madoka’s hero complex resulting in the eventual birth of this traumatized devil held greater blame: responsibility, and by proxy, Madoka’s cruel lack of it. 

Her fingers pressed together, eyes shut tight but gently enough to appear so for the broken thing she’d made and thrown away. But, no, within her lidded darkness there was a still-human Akemi Homura screaming for her to come back. In the darkness, there still lay a mountain of corpses human, extraterrestrial, and magical girl being devoured this very second, all seconds, past and future forever until there was nothing left and the Witches—the very worst humanity had to offer crystallized in macabre arts and crafts monstrosities—fell into hibernation. 

“They’re all dying,” Madoka acknowledged. Homura’s muttering tapered. “Everyone, everywhere, is being devoured at a catastrophic rate. In mere moments, any magical girl we’d interacted with will be all that’s left before the entropy Kyubey forewarned collects its due.” 

_ And I became this, telling Kyubey that I didn’t want magical girls’ wishes to be in vain, for their hope to be used against them.  _

Grasping her own face, panting, Homura tucked herself between her diamond-pattern stockings. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the stars, everywhere and nowhere at once. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m  _ so, so sorry. _ ” 

_ Homura-chan had to be the one exception, though.  _ Madoka recalled a time in a timeline where Kyoko said that everything balances out; goddesses were a part of the rule, apparently. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Please stop it.”  _ It’s not your fault.  _

“Madoka, I’m sorry!” Homura snapped stiff out her wallowing, wings erect. “I-I’m- _ I’m—! _ ” She wrenched away. “I failed you, Madoka, in every way possible and I’m sorry!” 

Such a small thing turned to face her then and there—a scrawny, bony thing Madoka had never seen in all her lives and tears. Because Homura had always faced her, her back never to Madoka. 

Always. Her eyes were on Madoka always. 

Until now. Now, finally, she was giving up. 

_ What have I done?  _ “I’m sorry.” 

The back went rigid—the back that had never been turned on Madoka until now. 

_ What have I done?!  _ “I’m sorry!” 

The back that carried Madoka’s responsibility for her, without her permission. 

_ “I’m so sorry, Homura-chan!”  _

And without her knowing it. 

Not fully. 

Not when Homura broke down in her apartment in the final timeline. Not when Madoka finally saw all her efforts from the perspective of a godly third party. Certainly not when Homura called herself a devil for the damnable crime of saving Madoka from her own miserable decisions. None of this, Madoka realized the full extent of, until she’d lost it in the reveal of Homura’s back.

Something closed tight around her, warm and desperate and shaking and gasping right beside her ear. “You’re fine,” it said. “You’re perfectly fine, you did nothing wrong—” 

Those words, this feeling—the tightness outside and within both, suffocating Madoka with responsibility wholly hers and none at all. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. What Homura felt and chose wasn’t Madoka’s responsibility because if it was then that just proved Madoka wasn’t good for anything; that her sacrifice for godhood was yet another failure in a long line of stupid short-term solutions. 

So what if Wraiths were just another kind of Witch? 

So what if puella died, still, in fear and heartbreak and regret? 

That was all Madoka’s fault. Her sacrifice—a moving of the goalposts if anything, and that was looking at it favorably. 

But Homura… had nothing…  _ nothing to do with—!  _

_ “It IS my fault, you dumb JERK!”  _

Homura hugged herself, wrenching well away after believing Madoka didn’t want her hands on her. “You’ve never yelled at me like that before.” Homura huffed, to her own surprise. “Even when you told me I’m not a devil more times than I’ve cared to remember. Guess nothing’s more fitting than ‘dumb’ and ‘jerk,’ though.” Her eyes were on Madoka’s lips, or elsewhere besides her gaze. “I disagree, however, but I suppose my doing so is what makes me a dumb jerk.” 

“That!” Homura flinched, eyes dancing wide between Madoka’s and her pointing, gloved finger. “Right there! You never doubted your own feelings, Homura-chan! You  _ never  _ thought what you were doing is wrong!” The angel before her made a daunting visage as the finer details of her regret blurred together. “Even—!” Madoka gasped. “Even when your pain was too much to bear, that ya had to start acting like a supervillain, you never  _ once  _ thought twice about whatcha thought you had to do! So don’t…” 

Madoka clapped across her mouth, kept her heaving within. Powered through; steel wall, iron. She wouldn’t cry; not here, not now, not again. Kaname Madoka wasn’t going to curl up and cry again. 

“So don’t you go and  _ ditch me _ ,” she choked, “and take all my responsibility with you. Not again, Homura-chan!” 

Silence. 

The stars sang as they were born and died, the universe screaming as it was devoured and dying, and it was silent as the grave from the halfbreed Witch named Love. 

And then, “Excuse me?” she uttered in a cold, dead tone, eyes as ever like thunderclouds captured in the moment of lightning flashing within. “Excuse…  _ me? _ ” 

She’d offended her. Something in there had prickled Homura, and it got her dangerous—for the first time Madoka thinking her as such. 

She steeled herself, nodded once. “Y-you don’t get to run off, Homura-chan, carrying all of that while leaving  _ me  _ to continue smiling vapidly!” Vacantly, arrogantly, cruelly—irresponsibly.

Homura huffed. Then she smirked, cracked. “You… you think I’m, that I’ve carried your responsibility? On your behalf?” She chuckled. “All this time?” she asked, laughing. “Is-is that it? Huh?  _ Is that it, Madoka?! _ ” 

And Homura froze stiff then and there, shock writ clear on her face. Madoka realized she hadn’t kept it in, but her heart was racing. She must have looked afraid. She was, but not for the reason Homura thought. 

That thing her “very best friend” had kept suppressed all this time was spilling out, and Madoka was several lifetimes too late to catch the glass. 

“M-Madoka, I’m—”

“Say it.” 

“I-I-I didn’t  _ mean  _ that—” 

How could one not mean their gut reactions? “Say it!” 

“Why?! So you could know just how  _ badly  _ you messed up!?” Her words lashed forth, her face was twisted; yet her eyes gaped with grief, pain flashing with every word that left her lips. 

But that was all. She wasn’t taking it back. 

Madoka breathed in, exhaled. “Say it, please.” 

Homura flinched, only midway before she ventured cautious severity—she must, at the very least, understand that Madoka wasn’t going to be hurt by her words. Not solely. “Yeah,” she told the starry void agape below. “You really  _ don’t  _ know. Never even considered it, really. You would have at least thought twice, just once if you have. But no, never, you always charged right on ahead committed to believing that you were right. The idea of being wrong was always inconceivable.” 

This was it though, the reason why Homura was here suffering with her. “And it’s  _ my  _ responsibility, Homura-chan, not your—”

“Then take it, for once,” Homura cried. “Take responsibility and for once—!” 

“‘For  _ once?’ _ You’re the one who thinks  _ my  _ decisions are  _ her  _ fault!” 

“I’m not so cowardly as to wash my hands of all the influence I’d had on you! But, no, I’m not talking about that.” As she said this Madoka felt gutted, hearing once again the still-human Homura screaming for her to come back, and ignoring that plea. Once again. “If we’re being honest, here, Madoka… it’s you who never carried your responsibility.” 

“I know—” 

“It’s  _ you  _ who always left me twisting in the wind!  _ You  _ who left me wondering if anything I did mattered!” 

And that was the responsibility Madoka couldn’t stand. 

“You!” Homura sobbed. “Who’re making me wonder what the point of it all was. We’re here at the end of all things, and you’re still trying to shoulder all the blame like some damned martyr!” 

“You’re not even letting me take a bit of it, Homura-chan, and that’s what I don’t get about you! Why can’t I be responsible for my actions, but  **_I_ ** have to be responsible for  **_your_ ** feelings!?” 

“I never  _ ASKED you to be responsible for my feelings, MADOKA!  _ **_THEY’RE MINE!_ ** ” 

“Then why are you upset that I never considered them?!” The sides of her head panged as this maddening loop wrung her pigtails tight. “Why the heck am I being given a free pass for being this stupid little girl?!”  _ I had thought I wouldn’t be lonely; I’d thought I beat the Incubators before becoming this; before seeing everything I’d forgotten and what was yet to be. But not once did I think Homura would be heartbroken. I thought she would be strong. I admired her for her suffering and sacrifice and part of me wanted to repay it in full when I made that terrible wish.  _

Madoka hugged herself, buckling as a rot devoured her from within. “Homura… I never asked for this. Any of it. This fate, your feelings; none of it. When I first gave my life to destroy Walpurgisnacht, I did so in hopes that you would live the rest of yours to the fullest. We… We’d known each other a month, so… so how could I’ve known you felt so strongly for me?” 

“You couldn’t have.” 

“But you wanted me to. Eventually.” 

Nothing, meaning she really did. The stars blinked out below, one by one. 

“Homura-cha—”

“I just wanted you to be happy.” 

Madoka’s heart stopped upon seeing Homura, smiling despite everything with tears in her eyes, despite those in of themselves. 

“I never wanted you to suffer,” she continued. “And I never wanted you to give me special accommodations. I wanted to save you first and foremost, but deep down, I wanted you to live your life as the amazing person who saved mine, because there are plenty of Homuras who need a Kaname Madoka in their life.” 

It was too much. Far too much. “I never asked for that kind of responsibility!” Then why did she even become a pseudo-goddess, if her gut was saying that? “I never wanted Homura to give her life for mine! Why, Homura-chan? I ask again,  _ why does it feel like I have to take responsibility for what I did to you?! _ ” 

“Because!” 

“Because  _ why? _ ” 

“Because Akemi Homura’s pathetic enough to become  _ this  _ over the first person to treat her decent!” For the first time in ages, this devil resembled the porcelain-fragile, twintail girl in glasses she seemingly grew out of. 

In a skimpy dress with tacked-on wings, that same Homura gasped. The stars sang, just a sliver of Japan screamed, and Homura, panting, palmed away the paths twinkling down her cheeks. 

“I know,” she squeaked, swallowing, “th-that you don’t... feel comfortable… having all this weight on your shoulders. Believe me, I know.” Despite her shuddering, a smile eased its way in. “You never felt comfortable with the notion—the idea that, quote, ‘someone like you,’ end-quote, could be so important. For any reason. To anyone. After all, you never got a love letter once in your life. How could Kaname Madoka mean the world to anybody, not to mention worth so much trouble?” 

Homura glowered aside, massaging her scrawny bicep. “I put you on a pedestal. I always have. When I became a Witch inside my soul gem, Madoka, I was forced to face and acknowledge all the ugliness I kept barred off inside me: I knew all of this, how you’d feel, and still I revered you like a cultist. I loved you and wanted you to love me back. I hated you and wanted you to acknowledge why. I hurt you and I wanted you to hate me, for all of this and more from that time, from so many failed loops prior, and now universes in retrospect.” 

Homura gutted Madoka, her gaze swift and stabbing and broken yet smiling. “I never allowed myself to dwell on what-ifs, to lose myself in what a ‘tomorrow’ would look like after Walpurgisnacht. I just wanted to save you, Madoka—because I loved you. Because you were worth saving.” 

Madoka shook her head, unable to bear that responsibility even now when it was needed most. Being a lonely goddess forever was easy by comparison. 

“You were worth more than a human sacrifice, dammit!” Homura cried. “You were worth something to me and I hate that you never seemed to care about that!” 

“Now that’s not fair, Homura! I tried my best, but I always felt like my hands were tied!” 

“But deep down you didn’t want any of this, either! You didn’t want to be tricked, made a victim, or to see anybody getting hurt, and I know this because you told me this so much I couldn’t forget it if I tried!” 

“Homura!” 

“But you realized how impossible that was,” Homura snarled. “Getting everything to go your way. So, you had to cut your losses somewhere. And here I am, still bitter over the fact that I was the lesser of two sacrifices.” 

It’s clear where she was heading. That is to say, the same place Madoka would go in her shoes—which she was, and thus had between countless universes in the past, when it was her ‘turn’ to rewrite Homura’s reality. “So why is it perfectly fine to suffer in my place, but I can’t for you? If I’m such a great, worthwhile friend,” the most twisted bit of irony in all of this, “then how come the girl who suffered eight years isn’t worth knowing?! That it’s okay to just pretend this amazing person just never existed?” 

“Do you  _ actually  _ think I’m worth anybody’s time after what we’ve been through?” 

“I could say the same to you.” 

“I only ever cared about  _ you _ , Madoka! Despite my mercy with the others, my feelings and efforts were only for her! But you? You’d do what I did for anybody, no matter who they were.” 

Homura wasn’t wrong. Not at all. “Then you don’t know a thing about me after all, if that’s all you have to say on the matter.” Yet she wasn’t right, either. “But… you  _ do  _ know me. Heck, you know me better than I know myself, if you’ll forgive the cliche.” Even with innumerable evidence from countless memories across two versions of Madoka, Homura still lacked the heart to call out her flaws as she just had; she, too, was afraid of her efforts having always been in vain. “You say you accepted your feelings, Homura, the bad with the good. But I’m afraid you simply dressed the bad as your own, and any fault in me a failing on your part. Even—” 

“Stop it.” 

“—how I feel about myself. How I always felt about myself.” Homura looked haunted, her jaw lowering as Madoka felt her eyes widen, her heart swell. “You knew, Homura. Somewhere along the line you realized—” 

“But you’re worth loving!” 

“—that I hate myself.” 

_ “Madoka!”  _

“As you do yourself.” Silence. Screams in the distance, of people they knew—a horror stemming from the ignorance of these two girls, suspended together in a hopeless, loveless abyss. “I just… realized, it makes sense. Homura, it makes sense,” Madoka breathed. 

“It doesn’t matter.” The devil squeezed her own arms, turning away from the one who wanted to be there, between them. “Madoka—

She advanced, reaching out. “H-Homura—”

“Please, don’t look at me!” Homura twisted away from almost being touched. “D-don’t pity me, don’t give me your tears—I don’t want them!” 

“That’s not fair,” said Madoka, fighting to keep her tone level. 

“It’s normal for kids our ages to question our value, to not see it! You’re still so young, Madoka, you had time to realize your worth if you just  _ let me—! _ ” 

“What? What? Let you suffer in my place just because you suffered all your life? That’s not fair, Homura, that’s bullsh—suger! It’s bull-sugar!” 

With a snort, a shake of a head, then a smile, Homura said, “Life isn’t fair, Madoka. And that’s what I made peace with back when a heart condition was the worst thing to ever happen to me.” Sniffling, her soul gem wavered freely. “This sad, broken thing you see before you…?  _ This  _ is Akemi Homura. This was her before you and Mami wasted your time saving her.” 

Madoka’s heart cried out, an, ‘It wasn’t a waste!’ dancing on the tip of her tongue. But no farther—for Homura had just explained why this worthless, tiny middle schooler was worth all the suffering and heartbreak for reasons X, Y, and Z. 

And Madoka just felt worse because of that. She wasn’t, no one was, not for what Homura went through. 

Homura, who felt the exact same about Madoka in turn. 

Madoka, who suffered so much trauma she’d considered worthwhile, and Homura’s wrong. 

Homura, who suffered so much trauma she’d considered worthwhile, and Madoka’s wrong. 

An endless cycle of suffering, like the Incubators’ system they tried countless times to replace. The inanity of Hope without grounding, of Love without acknowledgement—crystallized in the stupid fucking cycle of two kids who barely understood themselves, much less their feelings. 

Both for each other's sakes, and their own sense of worth, neither of them dared, for one moment, to place themselves before the other. 

For if they ever did, just once… 

...then all this might have never happened. 

“I should have talked to you then.” 

Homura’s head lifted, crumpled and shimmering slick with pink lights. “M-Madoka?” Weak, so weak she sounded. 

She’d heard Madoka cry many times—but not without a sound. As faintly as this thought passed, Madoka wondered if what she was thinking would have changed anything in the first place: “I should have talked to you then. Instead of trying to be your buddy, I should’ve made the effort to be your friend and understand you.” 

“We would have suffered the fate of all magical girls, yes,” she continued. “But you might not have had to watch me die with an awkward thanks as my parting words. You might not have contracted with Kyubey after, but prior, and been in a different mindset than one where you wanted to repay my kindness.” 

“We would have suffered the fate of all magical girls, yes,” Madoka reiterated to Homura’s stunned expression. “But at least then, I’d have gotten it right the first time. At least then, we would have understood each other then as well as we do right now.” 

“Madoka—” 

“I hate myself so much, Homura-chan.” Doubling over, every word was like another pound of flesh ripped from her innards. “Never did it cross my mind that you could have understood how I felt, nor was I so arrogant and courageous as to presume your personality was the very same I tried every day to hide with red ribbons and a friendly personality.” 

“Because, hey, ‘I’m Kaname Madoka,’” she thought aloud, from what felt like centuries ago, “‘and I’m a magical girl with a beautiful, strong senpai and a best friend who wouldn’t hesitate to give her life for mine. Akemi Homura-chan has real problems, though, and unlike me she was actually bullied in the past. How could petty insecurities be worth the energy it’d take for her to listen to my griping?’” 

Half a heartbeat passed, and statuesque Homura lurched over with a single sob into her hands, muffled by her gloves. Then, straightening with a smile and tears in her eyes, she said hoarsely, “‘And I’m Akemi Homura, and I was weak enough in the soul to fall for a Witch; to have to be saved by Kaname-san and her senpai—girls who risk their lives for everyone’s sakes, and continued acting the friend for mine. I have so many problems they’re unaware of besides my heart, there’s no way it would be worth risking that bond just because I’m tired of keeping them to myself.’” 

Homura looked to Madoka. 

Madoka looked to Homura. 

“I just wanted to be a hero, Homura-chan.” And it was this selfish desire which made Kriemhild Gretchen the worst of all Witches. 

“M-me too, Madoka. All I wanted was to be your hero.” A sentiment which made Homulily the suicidal Witch that lingered in the heart of Homura now. 

“I wanted to save you in more ways than one.” 

“I know,” Homura rasped. 

“But I was more afraid of making you uncomfortable than any Witch I ever fought.” 

“You didn’t want to hurt me, Madoka.” 

“An excuse.” 

“You’re fourteen.” 

“And younger kids have had greater responsibilities—you’re forgetting how useless I am at everything but sacrificing myself, Homura-chan.” 

She winced. “Please don’t talk like that.” 

“Sorry,” Madoka tittered. “I forget when I’m in a selfish mindset, just how much other people care about me.” 

Homura cringed again, and Madoka felt it as she hissed, “Yeah,” while looking her in the eye. “And I refused to believe that after eight years of doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results.” 

“The definition of insanity,” Madoka acknowledged. “Applicable to me, now, you could say.” So many conversations that didn’t even go as far as the one shared now. 

Homura nodded. “It’s these emotions that snowball into big mistakes, they make us prime targets for the Incubators out of every species in the universe.” 

The screaming was nearly silent. “Did I ever have a chance, Homura?” Madoka asked, knowing the answer the instant she made her final wish. 

“No,” Homura sighed. “Not with Kyubey. To completely upheave the system would be out of anybody’s karmic destiny, I think. Or else the Incubators wouldn’t allow it.” 

Knowing deep down, since the instant she made her final wish: “So it really was all pointless… and... so was your suffering.” Now more than ever, none of it felt worthwhile. Not over Kaname Madoka. 

“But I don’t regret it.” Homura was smiling, a smile which fell aside upon locking eyes, as did her confidence. “I-I don’t know how… how meaningful, I guess, the sentiment is, considering I’m all kinds of crazy.” Sniffling, a swallow. “I don’t know how much you’ll appreciate this, either, since my feelings and efforts have been nothing if not overbearing from the start.” 

She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right—about a whole lot of things. And Madoka was no better. Not enough to object, to deny her this release. 

Homura inhaled, mustering courage, it seemed, as she looked to Madoka’s eyes and said, “I’m glad we’re here at the end, finally coming to a semblance of an understanding.” 

And Madoka, surprised enough to find her heart not writhe in protest, massaged the diamond-shaped cut of her dress. “Y-yeah.” Still with her fingers upon her, she cast a smile to the one she loved. “Giving myself for Homura-chan, that was the one thing across all these lifetimes that I knew I wouldn’t regret. And looking back, I still don’t.” 

“Even though it was all pointless?” 

Madoka gaped, ready to object, until she saw the awkward grin beaming her way. Engulfed in darkness, but Homura glowed like a star. “I forget important things when I’m in a selfish mood.” 

She snickered, and Homura did too. It was easy to forget, even for a second, the ‘where’ and the ‘why’ of their current predicament. But Madoka was selfish, and she was useless; Homura was useless, and she was selfish—neither could do anything about it because of this failure to acknowledge their two-way parallel. 

Madoka didn’t think twice as she flapped her wings. Homura cowered instead of appeasing her need like she’d hoped. Madoka had been too forward, the exact thing she was afraid of from the start.

“Uh, um,” Homura stammered, glancing to and fro behind tapping fingers; a warped vestige of the girl who fidgeted nonstop on the first day of school, “do you…? You don’t… I mean… Mado—K-Kaname-s-san, you don’t have to force yourself to answer my feelings. In any capacity. N-Not that a hug is romantic or anything! But-but-but it’s—you just…  _ don’t…  _ Have to, I mean. The world is ending in part because of me. S-s-so… you don’t need to be nice anymore. Your resentment would be wholly warranted.” 

“Homura-chan,” Madoka scolded, “you’re talking like I’m forcing myself to do something I don’t wanna.” 

“I mean… aren’t you?” Sadly she just got a snort in answer. “I’m being serious.” 

“And so am I,” Madoka cried, words chortled. “It’s just crazy that you’re so knowledgeable of my character, but tend to doubt it whenever it comes to you.” 

Homura simply hummed, guilty. “Sorry I’m hard to deal with.” 

Madoka took her hands, as well as her attention. “Same. I’m sorry for that. For everything.” And before either of them could think twice and second-guess, she threw her arms around her angel masquerading in black. 

“M-Madoka!” 

She was hard as marble, yet soft as a plushie. Madoka giggled as she squeezed her stiff body close. “You were never this tense when we hugged before. In fact, you initiated just as much as I did.” Madoka knew because she kept track, both upon her ascension and across the unforeseen realities that followed. “You never stopped loving me.” 

Her blush was audible. “W-w-well, I mean, now you know about my…” Homura shook her head, bringing her arms tight around Madoka—the two of them scrawny enough to touch their own elbows. “The world is ending. How could you be so playful?” 

She just answered her own question. “I want a happy memory between us in this briefly-lived reality. At least, in that one respect, we’d be consistent  _ somewhere. _ ” 

Homura exhaled shakily, stirring Madoka’s hair. “I,” she hesitated, “I’m sorry… that… that your first admirer… turned out… to be… m-me.” 

It ached for more reasons than one. “Back atcha, dumb jerk.” 

“That’s not what I mean.” 

“I don’t care what you meant. Whether it be about your issues or your gender, the fact that you didn’t care for mine as you suffered to reach this point makes it incredibly easy for me to love and forgive you.” No response but a held breath. Softly, squeezing, Madoka finished, “But you knew all that, even when you were angry. Even when you told yourself I’d hate you for betraying my wishes, you knew, deep down, that I wouldn’t. I could never! All you did was fight for my happiness, and I’d have to be the biggest jerk in the universe not to see that, a monster for hating you over it.” 

“M-Madoka—” 

“I’m not the biggest jerk in the universe, but I am a monster who thought herself the hero. Not you, though, Homura-chan. Even as you internalized your rage towards my ignorance, you still loved me all the same. And I love you so much, Homura-chan.” 

“Madoka—!” Homura gasped. 

“Yes?” she teased into her twitching shoulder. 

“It’s just a creepy obsession!” 

It was a strong case for everyone, probably, but Madoka couldn’t help but think it a lame excuse. 

“Well,  _ I _ find it flattering.” Pulling away, she gripped Homura by the shoulders, breathing hard, the devil’s mewling choked. “I find it flattering,” Madoka reiterated, her love calming. “I don’t think many teenagers would go so far as to rip a god from the heavens for no reason but love’s sake.” 

“You always saw the best in everyone. Always.” Homura smiled, her lips trembling. “I don’t think anybody, young or old, would see my actions as anything more than desperate.” 

“Better desperate for someone else than one’s own self.” That was when the important things fell by the wayside, or became dressed in the ‘greater good’ perspective. Goodness she was disgusting; if this was how Homura felt, she suffered as a devil more than Madoka did a god. “Homura-chan?” 

A warmth touched Madoka’s forehead, the serenity of Homura’s flawless features having filled her vision. “Yes, Madoka?” she whispered against her lips, moving no closer. Never on her own accord. “Madoka?” 

A silent inhale—Homura never realized how cool she often was—and Madoka filled the silence with the feeling in her heart, beneath all that messiness tied to the one so close to stealing her first kiss: 

“If I could make one last wish, it’d be for the Incubators to have never existed.” 

Silence. And then, “Would such a paradox even be possible? You would still have to become a magical girl.” 

It was easy to forget that: beneath all the bells and whistles and weighty talk of karmic destiny, that in this form both she and Homura were just magical girls in shinier skin. 

“I didn’t even think about that,” Madoka confessed. “Only that humanity would find a way without their help.” And that the universe would live and die and be reborn from the ashes some millennia from the end. Hopefully—and that was all Madoka ever had to go on, but it made such things easier to believe. 

“Yeah.” Homura pulled back enough to open her eyes. “I think you’re right. Though if we’re being honest here…” 

“You’re saying I’m not?” Madoka teased. 

Blushing, smirking, wincing: “I-I wasn’t saying our feelings weren’t. Just that, a-at least for _ me, _ you know… if  _ I’m _ being honest here, I would mostly wish for that if it… if it meant keeping you from suffering. Any of this.” 

This romantic, selfish,  _ romantic  _ confession was all that occurred to Madoka. But Homura was still Homura, and she wouldn’t dare read into Madoka’s behaviors as being for her, because of her: “Just…I’m sorry, just forget I—” 

“Me too.” Now Homura looked as surprised as Madoka felt—haltingly so, her heart skipping a beat of ten. “I… wouldn’t mind it if the Incubators were gone. If it meant that Homura never had to go through what I put her through.” 

Homura’s brows were furrowed, her eyes dancing, taking in Madoka’s hot face and prickling, blurring eyes. “Thank you, Madoka.” 

“No,” she squeaked. Shaking her head, gliding down Homura’s arms and entwining their fingers together. “No, no, Homura-chan. Thank  _ you _ . Thank you so much for everything.” Madoka gasped against the swelling thickness in her breast. “Thank you for caring about me,” she heaved, “and never giving up on me,  _ and loving me and—! _ ” There was only heartbreak and regret left.  _ “And I’m so sorry, Homura!” _

“M-Madoka!” she cried as though in protest. 

“No.” Enough with their insecurities. Enough pain. Homura needed to feel comfortable about herself; she needed to know her feelings were valid and worth acknowledging. “I get it, you’re thankful for much the same reasons. You don’t have to find worth in matching what I’d just—” 

“No, Madoka, our hands!” 

“Huh?” And then she cried out in surprise, despite the comparative simplicity of the phenomena against everything else they’d been through. “Wh-what? What’s happening to us?” 

Neither of them dared letting go, so neither was squeezing. Yet somehow their hands, from the palms to the backs of them, were melting together. Or more accurate, they were slipping inside one another, transparent—like spectres’. 

“Madoka.” 

She peeped, for Homura was waiting for their gazes to meet and something within her wasn’t ready for that. “Y-yes?” 

“I’m not a Witch nor a magical girl. I was a thing created in the Wraith timeline, with no past and no wish that made me who I was.” 

“Y-yeah, that’s—a-are you saying you know what’s happening, Homura-chan?” 

“No,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I’m just guessing. But you, Madoka—-you’re a magical girl who shouldn’t exist in the world that you made. Not in the same way as the one you came from, yet you are.”

Her eyes were so wide and calm, more so than they had been in forever, maybe ever; so much so that Madoka had to dare herself to tear away. She had to—they were getting closer. Their forearms were infused, ghosting down the elbow, she realized. 

“I-I get it,” Madoka managed, unable to make distance. Homura’s dots were beginning to connect, and hope dared to swell in her breast once again. “No, yeah, I get it! I get it! Neither of us have made a wish outside of our original universe, so…” 

Homura huffed, coolly finishing, “And we’re two concepts who are finally aligned as one: we feel the same thing, we want the same thing… I-I mean,” she murmured, now cringing and flushing and hesitating to meet Madoka’s eyes, but for just a heartbeat, “do we? M—K-Kaname-san?” 

Memories flashed forth—no longer was she the devil with a wounded heart hidden neath madness, but rather the cute, shy, bespeckled girl whose name alluded to a passionate flame, and set Madoka’s heart racing. 

She leaned close, suddenly worried that her golden eyes had looked creepy all this time. “Even if we have to spend eternity with only each other,” Madoka said, smiling. 

That speckled girl had regarded her with awe in another memory—this magical girl wielding a bow who saved her from a Witch, did so with some crack about keeping it all a fun secret, and changed both their lives for the better. Did trauma break them both? Most certainly. 

“I’d rather have you than be alone again,” she finished. 

Homura’s face was struck with grief, agaped, gasped with love. The last thing Kaname Madoka would ever see, in any reality, for half a second later for a heart-pounding moment equally as brief, was Homura’s tilting face and hooded gaze filling her vision. 

And Madoka met her. 

The warmth, the tingle, lasted just a moment—and in that moment Madoka felt like vomiting as the lifetimes this kiss had waited for flashed by at once. 

Madoka couldn’t even tilt her head to readjust and reapply and savor it. She panicked a breath, before Homura’s knee brushed against her hip. A reminder that Madoka was truly not alone. 

But still, she wanted to see Homura properly one last time. 

She could only see the heartbroken relief in this strong girl’s face as she, at one point, tore a goddess in two. 

_ Maybe, _ Madoka wondered, the sight of Homura’s approaching kiss her last, dimming thought,  _ this means that she feels the same.  _

_ That she wants to relive it all and do it right this time.  _

_ Read me right this time.  _

_ That she regrets the past, still, but is thankful it happened at all.  _

_ Yes.  _

_ That will be the philosophy of our final universe, I know it. A place where hope and love, wishes and despair are everyone’s for the taking. So that they may grow on their own, learn, fall and rise just as we had—several chances to get it right, hundreds more than any magical girl ever got.  _

_ To suffer for such an idea, to give our lives for such a wish,  _ Homura’s thoughts rang alongside hers,  _ I would happily do so and save you a second time.  _

Kaname Madoka and Akemi Homura ceased to exist. 

Their final conversation in this universe felt like ten minutes. The reality was a week for those who suffered and survived the couple’s mistakes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will for real be the aftermath with all the characters.


	3. Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on. Everyone makes it count in their own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline jumps around here, so don’t assume it’s in chronological order. 
> 
> Here is a song to have in the background as you read this. It's triumphant but emotional, with lyrics in a made up language so you wouldn't be distracted: https://youtu.be/kaQYHJ501rQ

The sun rises up before Mikazuki Villa. Tomoe Mami flips a pan of flapjacks, or tries to—half the breakfast ends up on the floor, drawing Kyoko’s laughter. Hiding a smirk Mami scoops up the rather firm pancake and tosses it the redhead’s way, whose teeth snap down upon it, the rest falling into her blur of hands as Sayaka yanks Kyoko by the collar of her jacket, yelling behind her a good day for those not attending college. 

Young adults Chitose Yuma and Momoe Nagisa sit side by side, school uniforms the sole similarity between them. The former scans a light novel in one hand whilst curling a dumbbell in the other; the latter reads as well, a cookbook, her eyes devouring a recipe’s contents whilst rubbing her soft midsection. 

Beside Mami, the final mug of six is placed upon their family rack—a green one, cat-themed. The eldest turns, bidding goodbye to Sana, who plants a kiss on her younger housemates’ heads before heading out the door, her own school bag waiting to be swiped in the rush. 

It was another morning. 

======================================================

Natsume R+R Cafe’s front sign is flipped to ‘Open’ at the crack of dawn, its small green-haired owner always on time with an early start. She waters the hanging plants outside, as well as those within, hung or potted. 

Although not the pure bookstore she once vied to inherit from her family, Kako’s change in business prospects appeared just as suddenly as the day her skittishness had vanished, as did the sparkle in her eye when alone with her thoughts. Running a therapeutic bar of sorts, not unlike a cat cafe, was the perfect atmosphere for Kako to nourish her love of both books and those who got her here to enjoy such things. 

Benches throughout the bookstore’s greenhouse extension were dedicated to various missing girls: Tokiwa Nanaka, Shinobu Akira, Chun Meiyui, Haruna Konomi, Akino Kaede, Mikuri Ayame, and Mitsuki Felicia. 

How a girl like Natsume could know such a variety of persons, all of whom went missing, was a secret never addressed further beyond the answer, “They were my friends.” 

Journalists and novelists some decades down the line would continue to harass, but not for long. 

Not with the Blue Seas Family always having a representative nearby. 

=====================================================

Rena taps her hand, checks her phone, sighs, puts it away; outsde the cafe window, then a twinkle on her hand—a diamond ring. A sad smile forms, just one of the stories behind it the fact that she had certainly “cheated” often, still, almost daily despite this very day being set aside for “cheating.” 

Her eyes close, withholding the dam within, until a call beckoned her surprise.

A towering blonde approaches, shouldering out of her military jacket. She apologizes for her ill timing as ever. 

Rena’s arms latch around Momoko mid-sorry. Her oldest friend smiles as she returns the embrace, voices a happy twentieth anniversary since they became a trio back in school. 

The waitress didn’t come until their eyes were dry, smiles settled on their faces, and the past was talked of fondly. 

Rena eventually confesses that she thinks of Kaede often, despite this anniversary being her idea. Momoko tells her she’s just as bad, and they laugh knowing how mad their third would be knowing they still couldn’t get over her. 

====================================================

Tomoe-Sensei has the attention of her grade school students, smiles warm like their mommies would as she asks if they  _ didn’t  _ understand the English learned today. 

Tomoe-Sensei smiles haplessly as every hand that could be raised shoots into the air—many both from the same child. Gold was struck with this year’s class of burgeoning comedians. 

For every day is full of laughter. 

====================================================

A tiny cottage, snow-beaten in the mountains. From the chimney arises smoke swept up in the howls of winter. 

In this tiny vacation cottage there is warmth, glowing amber within. 

Before a groaning gramophone a couple sways in each others’ arms, more an embrace than a dance. Eyes drawn shut, smiles at peace, there exists nothing but this moment together. Upon a ring finger each, a diamond twinkles in the firelight. 

Ayano Rika and Isuzu Ren share another quiet anniversary. 

====================================================

Laughter bounces down the hall—five little kids shriek, waddling for the lives from a monster named Aino Mito. She roars, always on their heels. They thunder past the library, within which several annoyed glares are thrown their way. Kumi Seika snaps her fingers, grabs and eases their irritation with a smile. She resumes the picture book she was reading through with them. In the kitchen a floor below, chef Ibuki Leila sets her chowder on a dull flame, the sink beside her blossoming foam. 

Outside this manor, atop the front door painted white, a sign reads, ‘Azalea Memorial Orphanage.’ 

“They were our friends,” is any of the three’s responses to whom the “memorial” was dedicated to. 

====================================================

Kagami Masara lowers unto a rock, impales the dirt with her walking stick as she shoulders out her backpack. A valley of greens, browns and greys spreads out before her, impales the horizon as far as the eye could see. 

Unzipping her coat pocket Masara removes a tiny booklet titled, ‘Mountains of the World.’ Opening to a dogeared entry, Masara flattens the corner with a thumb and checks it in pen. 

Something slips from behind the front cover, but Masara snatches it between two fingers as though it were normal. She upholds it, unable to suppress her smirk as she recalled her own naivety that day. 

The day photographed, that is—Kokoro smiling bright as she always had, throwing a peace sign behind Masara’s head, who just stared at the camera waiting for it to be over. 

On that day Masara had questioned the point of photographs—like why Kokoro felt the need to capture something she would, quote, “remember forever” anyhow. 

Masara flips the photo, to Kokoro’s answer traced in ink so that her pencil wouldn’t fade like much else from those days:  _ “So that you’ll remember our friendship with perfect clarity.”  _

Kokoro was right about a lot of things, except for what they had at the end—it most certainly wasn’t friendship. 

Masara opens the cover, photo in-hand. A message is already in its place, one she can’t help but read again:  _ ‘Happy B-Day, Masa-chan! Let’s pick out a couple climbs sometime; I know a few in China with views to die for!’  _

In the off-chance those words are cursed, Masara saves those climbs last. 

She cares little about the “dying” in the “to die for” warning; she cares even less now than she did before Kokoro, in a way where she would not quite mind it. 

But Masara couldn’t die before making full use of this final gift. 

She calls Rena-chan at the base lodge—to lose someone you truly loved before realizing it without demeaning those damnable emotions that never went away, there was none kinder who understood Masara’s truly indescribable pain. 

=================================================

A young woman had long ago decided to let her hair, the ends of which gathered into a pair of tails, rest upon her shoulders. Wiping down the marble counter, she smiles. The finery-gilded lobby of her restaurant has five elderly patrons sitting in their curtained, private tables. 

Then, a shriek of her name scares Riko stiff and irritates an old man. His glare is nasty, but he can’t help but smile at the display behind the counter. 

Riko shushes the appearance of her bouncing, bouncy baker, grinning despite herself. Nagisa opens the foodies’ magazine, shoves in Riko’s face a black and white picture of their quaint little shop. 

Shocked, Riko tears it from Nagisa’s hands, who fills them with her own plump cheeks, skipping in place.

_ ‘Chiaki Wives Make Waves: Bento Bakery to be Awarded Comfiest Atmosphere, Best Dessert, and Friendliest Service.’  _

The magazine flops unto the counter, Riko staggering as a hand claps upon her mouth. Her eyes well, meet Nagisa’s. The taller woman steps forth, embraces and spins Riko round into a dip. The wives kiss deeply. 

Manaka, owner of Walnuts, arrives after closing hours with a wrapped gift: a frame displaying the article, and her cordial congratulations as their culinary rival to go with it. 

==================================================

Marine biologist Sana Futaba studies briney lifeforms beneath a microscope when she is started by a tap on the shoulder. 

Her lab assistant and kouhai blush as he scratches the back of his head, proposes they grab drinks after work. 

Sana blushes too hard to answer—never has anybody approached her with such a proposition. 

==================================================

Her writers’ blog announces the beginning of her final series before retiring from the craft. 

A chestnut-haired woman sighs as she leans back, removing her glasses to massage between the eyes. She wonders, still. She wonders after months of planning, drafting, and editing: the twenty-odd survivors, gathered at the gravesite as they are every year, each of them in various degrees of objection but ultimately accepting the idea brought forward. 

She got the green light, but none wished to give it. 

So, why does this feel so wrong—to share their story, at least in fiction? 

Perhaps it’s because she couldn’t understand… how they could all be happy after everything they’d gone through and lost. 

Nemu clicks back on various comments of the novel which skyrocketed her career:  _ The Rumor of the Sakura Tree and her Four Daughters.  _ Many claimed to have cried their heart out when only one daughter was left, the loneliest of all who could barely comprehend the depths of her own grief. 

It was like they were really her, many had said. 

Nemu looks about: from the personal study of her empty billion-dollar-manor, to within her own thoughts at the various lives of her sisters-in-arms, their marriages and careers. She rereads her blog post. All of this side by side grants Nemu understanding—she never could move on quite like everyone else did. 

Her blog post epitomized this realization.

_ ‘Hiragi Nemu’s upcoming Fall release:  _ The Magia Records’

==================================================

Sana and her boyfriend, once her assistant and kouhai, clink their wine glasses together and wish one another a happy six-months. But then the man frowns, and Sana puts her hand on his chest, asking what is wrong. 

The man replies cautiously, but genuinely, if he is not being too forward when he asks Sana the same. He thinks back on all the times she would stare out the window, or her cat-printed coffee mug and seem lost in thought. 

Later that night, two and a half empty wine bottles sit before Sana, as does a box of tissues. She sobs into her hands, which turns to screams. Then apologies. 

Tears grow in her boyfriend’s eyes as they look to the rough sketch of a greatshield on notebook paper, beside it a cat-like alien. Spread out before him is Sana’s scrapbook, these pages filled with cutouts of an adoptive family she knew in another lifetime, as well as nearly two decades’ worth of annual photos taken with a consistent group of twenty-plus girls at a memorial site dedicated to the infamous “Mass Abduction.” 

Her pain is real. No matter what, her pain is completely real. 

Sana chokes mid-apology as strong arms embrace her tight. 

===============================================

The therapist lifts a stuffed dolphin before her face. It tells the cowering little boy that he can tell the nice doctor lady whatever he wants, because she was the best at keeping secrets. 

He steps out from behind his mother’s skirts, smiling with the most adorable of blushes. 

The doctor grins bright as the sun. When he tries to say her professional-sounding name, she waves her hands fast and begs him to call her Emily, as that is what her friends call her. 

===============================================

Within a church in America, the pews of either side host fairly different halves of the guests: on the right sits numerous relatives marked as such by their blue hair, while the other is half as big with not one girl in attendance resembling another. 

Upon the altar, a redhead draped in whites slides a ruby wedding band upon her beloved’s finger. The black-suited bride mirrors the act, her gifted band embedded in sapphire. 

The priest decrees them lawfully wedded wives. 

Everybody cheers, but the friends of the brides scream the loudest for Sayaka and Kyoko. None, however, are louder than their one and only bridesmaid: an adopted daughter three years their younger, holder of the record for strongest woman in the world—Yuma Chitose. 

===============================================

Alina Gray unveils her newest masterpiece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: another entry of her ‘Beyond Life and Death’ series. Depicted is a bathrobed girl with “the perfect body,” swallowed by a swarm of winged shadows. 

She opens an email later than night in her hotel room: Nemu Hiragi requests her skills to become the art director for a television adaptation of her critically acclaimed final book series. Specifically, and this makes Alina grin, she asks her to be the creature designer. 

Alina agrees on the condition that her real name not be used, that she doesn’t earn a dime “whoring off the dead.” 

Production for  _ The Magia Records  _ begins within the following months, with several cast and crew members announced. In the years that follow, forums work for years trying to decipher the identity of the ingenious artist on the series, ‘Spicy Curry.’ 

===============================================

The tears in her eyes fall, mix with the sweat on her face as Sana is handed a bawling bundle of blankets. Her scruffy, exhausted husband embraces her shoulders, crying that it’s a girl like she’d hoped. 

Sana welcomes Iroha into the world. 

===============================================

Tsukuyo Amane steps onstage, her first since officially taking the name of her father. 

She bows to the audiences of Budokan. 

She swallows her grief, blinks away the mistiness in her eyes that are on full display within the jumbotron, and proceeds to blow into her flute. 

It is a ballad to her sister. A thanks for saving her life—that is to say, giving her one free from Grandmother’s yoke. 

===============================================

Sayuki Fumino smiles at Tsukuyo backstage. They bump shoulders playfully as they pass one another by. 

And she freezes as per usual, right before making the night’s debut. 

Sayuki tells herself that they are real, that she worked hard to get popular this time. She remembers how her friends died, that they died so she wouldn’t waste her life letting it drift her by as she had before. She remembers her wife and number one fan was out there, objectively certain that Sayuki was the best of all time. 

She steps out onstage. Budokan screams. Somehow, as always, Sayuki’s eyes meet Rena’s. 

They smile. 

===============================================

UEFA champion Kaoru Maki drops her bags at the door, collapses upon the nearest chair in her beach house. 

Finally, she has her life back. At least for a vacation. 

Hours later her best friend Umika arrives. 

Another twenty-odd girls trickle in throughout the evening. It’s the best week Kaoru had all year, and simultaneously the saddest. 

She remembers the way Natsuki died, and thinks she will never be half the woman that fifteen-year-old was. 

===============================================

Officer Minagi grins at the television in their break room, taps her partner on the shoulder, pointing to it. 

They see Professor Miyako accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for developing a source of renewable energy stemming from human emotions. It was called the stuff of science fiction, even now. 

The first thought of Sasara’s partner, Officer Shion, is an out-of-character thanks that Hinano still isn’t married. “A mid-life crisis,” Chisato defends. Like the two of them, Hinano is too married to her job. Sasara counters that it’s because the three of them aren’t close enough to the others, and that they know they have far too many problems “from that time” to irresponsibly burden a good man with their delusional-sounding baggage like Sana-chan. 

Chisato takes cold comfort in this perspective. 

That is until weeks later she, Sasara, and Hinano each get an invitation to Futaba’s baby shower. 

===============================================

Iroha has one arm around her mother, Sana, the other bracing her wobbly arm balanced on a cane. They inch to the patch of graves in the meadow ahead, where two picnic tables are spread with food, and a flute trills in the distance. Chatter gradually seeps into the silence.

Despite her age, the blonde head of Emiri Cisaki bounds away from the gathering like she were thirteen still, waving both hands like an SOS. 

She screams brokenly to Sana and Iroha that today’s a happy sixtieth anniversary. 

The photo taken at dusk, posed before the graves of those lost, portrays a family of twenty-five.

===============================================

**END**

===============================================

The week in which the girls fought for survival consisted of a large-scale defense of Kamihama, then an escape, and finally several fractured battles from strategic points trying to break up the horde of Witches. 

**The “Final” Battle**

Believing it to be their graves, the last magical girls on Earth fortified downtown Kamihama into an impregnable fortress. Or so they thought—no plan or walls could counter a veritable ocean of familiars, or the possibility that their Witch masters would be so crafty as to send them out first. 

Konoha Shizumi—Mauled in an ambush before the battle whilst foraging for firearms

Hazuki Yusa—Mauled in an ambush before the battle whilst foraging for firearms

Ayame Mikuri—Fell on her own scythe after returning, realizing she’d abandoned her sisters. 

Ui Tamaki—Without the Kamihama she knew as a magical girl, her magic went berserk on the spot; contained and crushed by Alina Gray, who refused to “repeat a work” in lieu of the Magius’s one and only timeline. 

Aimi Eri—Effectively “sniping” from a high vantage point, was burned alive by a Yu Hong

Konomi Haruna—Decapitated whilst holding the ramparts 

Mifuyu Azusa—Fighting on the ramparts beside Yachiyo, stabbed multiple times before falling below into the churning sea of Familiars; eviscerated 

Kanoko Yayoi—Mauled whilst breaking

Mitama Yakumo—Used all her magic to scramble that of a Kriemhild Gretchen, nearly becoming one herself but perishing in the great Witch’s insanity-induced self-detonation. 

Ayaka Mariko—Splattered by the breaking wheel of an Octavia 

Oriko Mikuni—Used too much magic to protect Kirika, soul gem shattered upon request

Kirka Kure—Suicide 

Kokoro Awane—Took a blow for Masara, one that hit and shattered her soul gem 

Shizuku Hozumi—Lost chakrams; maintained her tunnel for girls to escape before crushing her blackening soul gem. 

**Escape from Kamihama**

Shizuku’s sacrifice gave hope where it was lost. Escaping would require many to stand back and bait the horde if it meant recuperating and restrategizing. 

Ryou Midori—Held back the tide with immense explosions until captured, drawn, and quartered by a Kristen and her familiars

Ikumi Makino—Fought until watching Ryou’s demise; fell to despair

Tsuruno Yui—Used all of her magic to annihilate the brunt of the encroaching Witches, intentionally shattering soul gem in the process. 

Kaede Akino—Used all of her magic and several grief seeds to contain a recently arrived Kriemhild Gretchen in plantlife nearly one mile thick

Asuka Tatsuki—Committed seppuku

**Last Stand**

Fueled by a hysterical survival drive, and grief at having lost at least one person they knew, the surviving magical girls planned to go out fighting, but not without taking every Witch they could to the grave first. The small army fractured into smaller groups to divide the swarm and survive for as long as possible. 

**Kamihama Sewers** \- Geographically the “first defense” from the horde to the other points, and a veritable suicide mission. The closed environment allowed for a circular formation and crowd control. For these reasons, strong and fearless fighters were implored.  **Survivors:** Sana Futaba, Mami Tomoe, Sayaka Miki, Kyoko Sakura 

Akira Shinobu—Surrounded and cut off from formation due to distance disadvantage; shredded by a Pamela. 

Meiyui Chun—Shredded by a Pamela trying to avenge Akira 

Nanaka Tokiwa—Swarmed and mauled in a desperate bid to penetrate her perfect offense; did not scream. 

Iroha Tamaki—Came to sewers when she wasn’t supposed to, refusing to die apart from her Mikazuki family; shot at and subsequently crushed by the collapsing streets above to buy time for Sana and Yachiyo’s escape. 

Felicia Mitsuki—Enraged by Iroha’s death; destroyed indiscriminately, levelling Daito Ward and burning through every grief seed she obtained until the Witches abandoned their attack. Became one herself; put down by Sana Futaba and Yachiyo Nanami. 

Yachiyo Nanami—Wounded to the point of insanity; used all her magic in a final defense to protect Sana moments before Homura and Madoka made their wish. 

**Mitakihara Skyline** \- Fierce fighters took the height advantage, devising hit-and-run tactics until Mitakihara ran out of skyscrapers, and their fight was taken to the metropolis’s suffocating yet barren streets.  **Survivors:** Masara Kagami, Chistao Shion, Seika Kumi, Leila Ibuki, Mito Aino, Kaoru Maki, Umika Misaki, Momoko Togame, Rena Minami, Sasara Minagi

Mayu Kozue—Eaten in half by a Candy whilst jumping between rooftops

Kazumi—Was presumed deceased early in the battle, until a day later there was a great  _ Limiti Esterni  _ which bathed all of Mitakihara violet; destroyed self, Mitakihara Middle School, and every Witch and Familiar she could lure and fit within its halls. 

Matsuri and Arisa—Lulled into a fight to the death by a Shalimar; Arisa jumped on her own scythe after bisecting Matsuri. 

Natsuki Utsuho—Heart ruptured by a Renata; lulled into suicide by Shalimar; unable to resist the force of either, spent last moments encouraging the resolve of those around her until overwhelmed by familiars. 

Himika Mao—Nearly lost hope; fought until her weapon was lost, moving to use her fists instead of accepting defeat at Natsuki’s encouragement; gathered wounds at a rate she didn’t realize due to magical pain blockers; became a Witch. 

Haruka Kanade—Eviscerated by a Gertrude in the successful avenging of her teammates. 

Suzune Amano—Obliterated by a newly birthed Bond Bomb. 

**Mt. Fuji** \- Tactical, supportive, and various “useless” girls utilized traps and height advantage to keep the Witches at the base of the mountain.  **Survivors:** Alina Gray, Tsukuyo Amane, Nagisa Momoe, Riko Chiaki, Nemu Hiragi, Emiri Cisaki, Hinano Miyako, Sayuki Fumino, Rika Ayano, Ren Isuzu, Yuma Chitose, Kako Natsume, Manaka Kurumi

Kanagi Izumi—Singlehandedly held the line at the base until overwhelmed

Touka Satomi—Provided air bombardments with her magic until impalement by a Latria.

Tsukasa Amane—Acted as bait for child puella to flee, despite sister’s bawling protests. 

Ria Ami—The summit overwhelmed, and the lodge she was holed up in surrounded, she panicked and took her own life

Karin Misono—Threw self in a doorway between fellow magical girls and familiars, moments before Homura and Madoka’s wish was made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist paying homage to InuCurry with Alina - in my heart the true mastermind behind Magia Record's success, as they are the primary reason why most everybody is so rich in character, due to their doppels/Witches. 
> 
> Please tell me what you think if you have anything to say, anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sad as fuck to see the NA server go. It's particularly impactful because I would have never gotten into anime if I hadn't watched Madoka last August. I seriously adore this franchise and so many of its characters, and I fear because of this the death of the JP server is just around the corner. 
> 
> What you just read was the aftermath of what I always envisioned the franchise ending depicting (that is to say, what the description sets up for background). The next chapter will be a series of snapshots of the girls who survived (not all of them were mentioned by name) way into their adult years.


End file.
